Talking about dementia across languages

In some families, dementia is talked about plainly. In many others it is not talked about at all. The words available can make that harder: in some languages the nearest term means something like “madness” or “losing your mind”, and in others memory loss is simply described as old age, something to be accepted rather than looked into.

None of that is unusual, and none of it is a reason to stay silent. It just means the conversation needs a little more thought.

Why the words matter

When the only available word is a frightening one, people avoid using it. An older parent may refuse to see a doctor because being “assessed for memory” sounds like being declared unwell in the head. A sibling overseas may hear “dementia” and think the family is exaggerating. A relative may worry about what the community will say.

The practical cost is delay. Getting a proper assessment early matters, because memory and thinking problems can have causes that are treatable, and because the earlier a family understands what is happening, the more say the person themselves has in the plans that follow.

Ways to start the conversation

Describe, do not diagnose. Talk about what you have noticed: getting lost on a familiar walk, unpaid bills, the stove left on. Concrete examples are understood in every language and they are hard to argue with.

Talk about health, not the mind. “The doctor wants to check your memory, the same way they check your blood pressure” is often easier to hear than anything involving the word dementia.

Choose the right messenger. Sometimes the person a parent will listen to is not their child. It may be a trusted GP, an older relative, a religious leader or a friend from their own community.

Expect more than one conversation. Very few families settle this in a single afternoon.

Respect the person’s own wishes. Some people want to know everything. Some want their family to handle the detail. Both are reasonable, and the conversation should follow their lead where it can.

When a parent goes back to their first language

As memory changes, many people lose the English they learned later in life and return to the language of their childhood. That can be distressing for grandchildren who never learned it, and for support workers who do not speak it. It is also completely normal. We wrote about it in when a parent goes back to their first language.

Getting help in your language

• Professional interpreters. For many health and aged care conversations, an interpreter is free. How to get a free interpreter for aged care explains how to ask for one.
• Information in your language. Dementia Australia publishes help sheets in a range of community languages, and runs a national helpline that can arrange an interpreter.
• Government information. health.gov.au and myagedcare.gov.au explain assessments and the support available.

What good care looks like here

Language is the start. Being understood also means care that fits the person’s faith, food, routines and the way they like to be spoken to, done the same way by everyone who comes through the door.

That is why we ask families to tell us these things once, so they can be written into the person’s One Story record and followed by every member of their Care Circle. A cultural and religious preferences sheet is a good place to start writing them down, whoever you end up working with. Our languages and cultural care page explains how we approach matching support workers by language.

This is general information, not medical advice. If you are worried about someone’s memory, start with their GP.